I am currently a Contributing Editor at Wired Magazine in the UK, having written for Wired UK since its launch in 2009, and speak regularly on the impact of developing technologies on consumer behaviors at Wired Consulting events and elsewhere.
In my copious free time, I write for Wired, GQ and elsewhere on the emerging digital culture, from gaming giants to adventurous startups, and provide creative insight for technology companies. In previous lives, I managed corporate communications for a large software company, and was a senior creative at a Hoxton agency. But then again, who wasn't?
I'm also on Twitter and Google Plus. Send tips and/or contacts to danielATdanielnyegriffiths.org

Mass Effect, Web Campaigns and the Five Stages of Bereapment

If you are reading this, then you may have recently suffered a great loss, having played and finished Mass Effect 3.

This has been a difficult time, not just for players having to face up to the end of their adventures as Commander Shepard, fighting the nefarious Reapers in BioWare‘s sweeping, space-operatic universe, but also for those disappointed by the creative decisions made around Shepard’s final flight. And, so often forgotten when we come together to mourn the end of a video game, let us also spare a thought for the hard-working employees of BioWare, who waved their beautiful creation out into the world a mere month ago, only to see it hit repeatedly with Internet hammers.

In the face.

There is no quick or easy way to get over disappointment with a video game, or indeed disappointment with disappointment with a video game. However, as with all such losses, we can work through it together. To help this process, let us look at the Kübler-Ross model for the process of grieving: The Five Stages of Bereapment.

Stage 1: Denial

Usually, denial would mean denying that anything is wrong. However, for some in BioWare’s loud-suffering fanbase, it was more about denying that anything was right. Long before Mass Effect 3 came out, it was being confidently anatomised by the haruspices* of the Internet. The results of this extascopy in absentia were dire: it was clearly going to be a terrible game.

The reasons for this were varied – some pointed to the likelihood of Commander Shepard, for so long a square-jawed bastion of manliness**, becoming a square-jawed bastion of manliness who could kiss other dudes. More gender trouble came from leaked information that Tricia Helfer – formerly the disembodied voice of EDI, the ship’s computer – would be given an attractive lady-robot body. Which, given Helfer’s iconic role as an attractive lady robot in Battlestar Galactica, seemed a little on-the-metal-nose. Further gender trouble followed the discovery within BioWare’s barque of the writer Jennifer Brandes Hepler.

As we know, non-robotic women on board ship are bad luck. Quotes dug up from an old interview and presented out of context made it absolutely clear that even marginal influence would lead to the removal of any skill-based elements from BioWare’s games and their replacement by a Japanese-style dating simulation.

Greater concern, however, came from revelations about the streamlined gameplay, Kinect integration and the absence of segments devoted to combing barren planets for lost medallions in an all-terrain vehicle that handled like a drunk steer***. Also controversial was the suggestion that there would be a multiplayer mode, and that this multiplayer would have an impact on the single-player story which had so far defined Mass Effect. At best, went the argument, this would make Mass Effect 3 into an imitation of Gears of War.

Then the game came out, and it turned out that it was neither Gears of War nor Happy Accidental Tokyo Romance Hooray! The multiplayer was fun enough, but did not hugely impact on the single-player game. EDI’s narrative was broadly satisfying, and thematically congruent with the plot. Romance was entirely voluntary, and the option to simplify combat in order to focus on plot and character development was just that – an option.

Admittedly Kai Leng was a difficult character to love – but you can’t have everything, and that was arguably the point.

And then people got to the ending. Hoo boy.

* Roman Fortune-tellers (sing. haruspex) who tell the future by looking at the entrails of an animal. The future generally, that is, not the animal’s future, which would be considerably less impressive.** Unless your Commander Shepard is a woman, of course. Or does not have a square jaw.*** Say what you like, but I enjoyed tooling around in the Mako ATV. It was relaxing, and very much in line with the prog-rock feel of the first Mass Effect.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.

Comments

ME2s ending still has more different possibilities than what color the galaxy explodes in, which I do find funny. Also, the choice between destroying the station and handing it to TIM is also a rather large difference.

The Retakers that want the entire thing scrapped are generally the more vocal and “in your face” members. Most of us in our threads on the BioWare forums have come to a consensus on just adding to the game, as we don’t want those who already like the game to be affected by it. Again, I say most. The more thoughtful Retakers also realise that not all platforms have the ability to be edited like PC games can be. So on a technical level, actually fully changing the ending wont work.

I’m a proud Retaker, but I also accept there are limitations to what can be done for ME3. I say add, don’t change. I want everyone to be able to enjoy the masterpiece that BioWare has created through the series, not just part of the player-base.

Ouch! Harsh words for Reddit, there – I confess that I was more interested in the Reddit poll both for its multiple questions, but also because of Reddit’s more diverse membership (although its membership does contain many vocal critics of BioWare and ME3, as a visit to /r/masseffect demonstrates, and this is clearly FSVO diverse – in particular, I’d imagine that the general playership of ME3 skews a little more female than the poll contribrutors). BSN is a valuable research community, though, definitely.

Thanks for this, Skyre – I’ve been reading a lot, and talking a lot, about this, but it’s always great to get more perspectives. The ME2 ending is an interesting comparison point: in one sense, it’s incredibly linear – you get a choice of two possible endings, red and blue (thus, ME3 expands that with _three_ possible colours ;) – but the process of getting to that point throws in a huge number of variables, based on party loyalty, personnel choice, how soon you initiate the end game and so on. I actually wrote a piece about this, sort of, in 2010 – archived here:

I think a lot depends on where you see the ending begining, if you get my meaning. I suspect that I was seeing almost all of ME3 as, in effect, the ending, so saw the variation in which characters you met and interacted with, and how that affected your and their lives, as part of the endgame. And things like the Conrad Verner episode showed a tremendous level of craftsmanship within that, which probably topped up my indulgent bar. On the other hand, my attitude to playing is not the only one available, of course.

I actually don’t think the endings of Mass Effect 2 and 3 are that different. The base explodes in two different colors and each, while visually similar, leaves behind very different repercussions. In that regard, Mass Effect felt very similar to me.

I’ve seen the argument that ME3 itself is “the ending” to the whole series, and there is a certain validity to it. However, ME3, on its own, should have followed the Dramatic Arc, and did right up to the end. The ending violated that Arc. That, I believe, is the core of why so many people are upset about the ending. See http://jmstevenson.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/all-that-matters-is-the-ending-part-2-mass-effect-3/.

How to fix ME3 so that it has a proper Falling Action and Resolution is debatable, and that’s why the Retake Mass Effect 3 movement seems fuzzy at times. However, they all agree that the existing Falling Action and Resolution are terrible, which is why there are so many members.

I sense that someone here has been downvoted into oblivion and is slightly butthurt about it.

While the Mass Effect subreddit can be a bit of an echo chamber, I’ve seen far more insightful commentary and reasoned discussion there than on the BSN. The sheer amount of poorly-composed crap on the latter is astounding. Heck, waifu wars aside, /v/ and /vg/ often have more productive ongoing discussions than the BioWare forums, and that’s saying something.

Wells, being my overly critical self, it is easy to point out the flaws in it from a story point. The fact that the conclusion (which is an important part of any story) does not flow, instead has a jarring change from the story.

Anyone you studies literature can easily point out that the conclusion is a section where you tie up all lose ends, but adding a new character and completely new story line in the last 15mins goes against everything a conclusion is meant to be.

But I digress, I think for the most part, this explains the general points Retake has about the ending-

Dont use Reddit outside of EVE related stuff, and even then, I’m one of the downvoters ;p

Depends on where you look though, really. You can find just as much insightful posting on the BSN forums, if you know where to look. As for bad posting, the same happens on Reddit. However Reddit is prone to more…lets say “aggressive” posters.

I said this in the discussion about Jennifer Brandes Hepler, which I think applies here – “knowing where to look”, as Skyre says, is probably key – and thus deciding whether to put the hours into getting the hang of a community’s culture. It’s certainly very easy to find discussions on boards this size to support almost any claim about the culture of that board…

To be fair to 4chan, though, I don’t think it’s safe to assume that everyone on any community is expressing the same views in the same way. 4chan, like reddit or the BioWare Social Network or indeed Forbes.com, has a large membership with diverse views and ways of expressing them. Certainly, there are communities where more forceful expressions of opinion are more tolerated – 4chan’s comment culture varies from the Utne Reader’s comment culture, and actually varies between different chans within 4chan. The market finds its level – if nobody is doing anything illegal, this speech is protected (at least in the US), and social groups tend to find the level that works for their members. Although it gets problematic when those social groups are public, or become suddenly the focus of outside attention, or want to behave in the same way outside their own space. Which is pretty much what happened here.

That article is getting shared a lot, and I can see where it’s coming from – but, actually, I think it highlights the problem of a) demanding that every story fits the narrative of the Hero’s Journey – even the Russian Formalists weren’t that prescriptive and b) then trying to cram every story into the Hero’s Journey, which breaks down in several places. Most obviously, Shepard wanting to stay on Earth isn’t refusing the call. It’s just a narrative fillip to show that Shepard is extremely brave, if at times a little impulsive. It all starts to break down a bit at the end, as well, because video games have their own rhythms – boss battle, boss battle, final boss battle. How is the Omega 4 Relay a return home? It’s more like a kind of nekyia, if we’re bouncing narrative terminology around, although you’ve really already had one of those in the dead Reaper. So, is it an ordeal? That’s probably closer to the mark. How is finding out that the Collectors were Protheans death and rebirth? It’s _somebody’_ death and rebirth, but not the hero’s. And so on.

It’s not hugely surprising that BioWare stories largely follow the Hero’s Journey – it’s a good broad guide for creating genre fiction based around a single character starting out normal and “levelling up” through adventures – thus, a good model for a single-player role-playing game. But turning it into a series of boxes to be ticked, and trying to find ticks to put in those boxes, is not a very useful pursuit. If the writer hated the ending, he could probably have just explained why, without trying to appeal to Joseph Campbell’s authority.

There’s a critique of overdevotion to the Hero’s Journey in general, and quite an amusing one, here, by Feminist Hulk (language a little NSFW). Amusingly, Feminist Hulk criticises BioWare for being too dedicated to the Hero’s Journey…